The last thing I remember seeing Robert Redford in is Avengers: Endgame. Turns out other than a voiceover and an uncredited cameo appearance in a television show he produced, that was his last real role. I actually think that's kind of cool, but also quite sad, so it's tough to know where my head is at. On one hand, he went out in one of the biggest movies of all time and was awesome in it. On the other, it was a comic book movie, and his acting talent was so beautifully nuanced that I can't help but feel his last film should have been something else.
But anyway... Redford was Alexander Pierce in the Marvel comic book movies, and was absolutely wonderful in the role. Captain America: The Winter Soldier remains one of the best super-hero movies ever made, and that's due in part to his performance.
But the film which he will forever be remembered for by me is, of course, Sneakers.
I love that movie so much, and was thrilled that Redford's character was so flawlessly cast...
But then again, they were all flawlessly cast.
I think the first thing I ever saw Redford in was The Natural. But it might have been a VHS rental of All the President's Men, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Candidate, Three Days of he Condor, or perhaps The Sting.
But the thing I will always remember him for most are Sneakers, Captain America: Winter Soldier, Up Close & Personal, Indecent Proposal, and... Legal Eagles?!?
This Redford flick co-starred Debra Winger and Daryl Hannah... and was not great. Nor was it particularly memorable. I just remember it because I saw it on a date that didn't go particularly well.
And so... I'm going to work my way through the Redford movies I loved starting this weekend. Maybe a new favorite will emerge, but it's pretty tough to think that any of his movies could ever top Sneakers.
But who knows? I've never seen The Way We Were, Barefoot in the Park, or Out of Africa because they definitely don't seem like my kind of movie... but maybe if I'm adventurous enough, I'll find out
If you're fascinated by my adventures with growing tiny tomatoes... AND WHY WOULDN'T YOU BE?... you'll be sad to know that my tomato yields have been dropping quickly. There's still a good-sized tomato & feta salad left on the vine, but they're not ripening evenly. So I only get a small handful at a time.
Which means my salads can no longer be main courses. All I've left are side salads...
Still incredibly delicious though. It will be very hard to go back to store-bought after having home-grown, which can't even begin to compare.
I guess we'll all have to wait and see if anything else will ripen enough to be useable. Fingers crossed.
Despite the fact that I'm a vegetarian, I've been wildly adventurous with experiencing world cuisine. So long as there wasn't any meat or mushrooms in it, I would try just about anything. I've had some incredibly spicy curries and questionable preparation of various foods... but my stomach is like cast iron, and I've never been worse for wear. And that's been the case for as long as I can remember.
What I am very easily affected by are medications. Which is the reason that I try to take as few of them as I can.
But sometimes it's unavoidable if I want to... you know... live, and stuff. Or, at the very least, live comfortably.
The latest I'm having to take came with a list of side-effects. And high up on that list is diarrhea. Which is to say that I'm 100% guaranteed to get it. Which is fine, because Imodium exists. But it's not like I am dying to take that because sometimes it causes more problems than diarrhea does.
Like I said, medications are problematic.
So it's a gambling game.
Is the gurgling in my intestines going to end up being bad enough that I should take the Imodium? Or will it be a minor event and I can proceed safely through my day without it?
As you can imagine, guessing wrong can have very dire consequences indeed.
So as I get older, I find myself less and less willing to chance a diarrhea incident gone terribly wrong. Which is why I'm seriously thinking about buying stock in the company that makes Imodium.
Sure it's insider trading, but who doesn't listen to their bowels when considering investments?
After recovering all weekend by staying out of the wildfire smoke, it was back outside to go to work today.
Somehow I survived.
Though it doesn't really feel like it, because if not for the smoke I would have been out and about over the weekend. Summer days are growing short, and it would be nice to take advantage of that. Not that I can complain too much, because I did some more things framed and hung up... and was able to clean a good chunk of my house now that my back spasms are mostly gone.
Not that I was feeling well enough to scrub the bathrooms... but I did vacuum. And that counts.
More smoky days ahead, but it would seem I can still blog while being trapped indoors... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• AI is Still Shit: Part 1,683! Dang. Googling my own blog to find something... and seeing their AI summary at the top is scary as hell. "Gemini" is drawing some very good conclusions each time, but missing the point entirely on a lot of things I've posted. Sarcasm and humor are left out of the equation, which means what I was intending to convey is badly misrepresented. Kinda freaking me out that people will see what Google is telling them and think that's what I was saying. But that's AI for you. Anybody who trusts it entirely needs to drastically reevaluate what they're being told.
• Unboxed! Marques Brownlee will be reviewing all the new iPhones in short order, but I wanted to reiterate how gutted I am that we finally get a brightly-colored iPhone Pro the minute I decide I'm going to pass on upgrading. Just look at how awesome it looks...
Yeah... the orange color paired with the camera lenses being upgraded (not to mention the sensor) almost makes me want to upgrade. Almost.
• Jaws! My current mood...
Cats are fiesty, that's for sure.
• NEWSFLASH: Whey to go: Is cheese the new reason to travel? It always has been. Going to the Kaasmuseum (Dutch Cheese Museum in Alkmaar) became a life ambition the moment I found out it existed. That's why you always travel for cheese! Parmesan and mozzarella in Italy. Cheddar in England and Canada. Feta in Greece. Butterkässe in Germany. Pepper cheese in Australia. Camembert in France. Cotija and Queso Fresco, and Oaxaca in Mexico. Manchego in Spain. Queso Tico in Costa Rica. Provoleta in Argentina. Sakura in Japan. I didn't have a specific cheese in Korea that I can remember, but I DO remember their corn cheese! And of course ALL THE CHEESE IN THE NETHERLANDS! I don't eat so much cheese now, but I would still travel for cheese!
• Big! This really takes me back. The interesting thing to note here is that projection TV technology was shit back in the day. If you don't view it directly-head-on, you can't see the picture well at all. Viewing from off the side was impossible...
Of course now people are thrilled to have their entire living room taken over by a television. I know I am!
• NEWSFLASH: Child dies of horrifying measles complication in Los Angeles. Herd immunity is failing now that anti-vaxers have created the society they’ve been dreaming of. And the death toll is only going to rise. This is horribly sad. Herd immunity is critical for protecting people unable to be vaccinated... like babies. How the fuck did we get here?
And now back to our regularly-scheduled wildfire season.
With the catio closed all week because of my wildfire smoke allergy, the cats have been depressed. Jenny hasn't been dealing with the situation well at all. Sure she doesn't sit in front of the cat door and cry like Jake. But she checks several times whether the door is open.
Just Jenny... contemplating her life choices that lead to the catio being closed for business...
As usual, there's almost zero chance of taking her photo without her noticing...
Jake has been frustrated indeed that stuff is going on outside the window and he can't go investigate...
He's mostly been sleeping. He can sleep for hours...
Then one day when I got home the smoke wasn't terrible. So I opened the catio door. Jenny went out for five minutes and came running back in. Jake waited a few more...
Oh well. I just had to close the cat door again the next morning.
I thought I would wake up in serious back pain after re-injuring it by trying to run my dishwasher.
But I didn't toss and turn in my sleep and woke up laying on my heating pad the same as I fell asleep. Now, granted, I only managed to sleep 4 hours and 10 minutes (according to my Apple Watch), but still... I was quite happy, because my back felt... fine?!? Last thing I remember my cats were both next to me, but only Jake remained when I woke up.
Well, fine enough that I didn't end up taking a muscle relaxer, but it was far from great. Though when I got home I vacuumed the floor without issue, so maybe resting over the weekend will heal me up that I can have a semi-normal week next week.
Now, I realize it's not Caturday until tomorrow, but I am compelled to share the photo I took before falling asleep yesterday. Jake is infamous for hopping on the bed where Jenny is sleeping and laying on top of her legs or her head or whatever. Except last night Jake lay down just next to her, and I was thrilled that he didn't disturb her spot since she was there first.
Then he started kicking his legs, waking her up (again), before he finally stuck one of his legs through hers. She was, as you'd imagine, thrilled...
Thank heavens I was looking at my phone at the time this happened. Usually I miss photos of moments like this.
But then she fell back asleep, so no harm no foul, I guess?
Until sometime in the middle of the night Jake did something to make her scamper off.
My back muscles must be getting weak in my old age, because I've vomited plenty of times in my life and never ended up with a back spasm. But now? Apparently it's cause enough.
And do you want to know the worst part of laying down after work for the rest of the day so you can try to heal instead of having to take muscle relaxers for a month? It's the filth.
I am not an immaculate housekeeper (except for my kitchen, which I try to keep very clean at all times because I make meals there). But I do try to make sure that I clean up any messes I make, pick up after the cats, and keep the place clean enough that I'm not mortified if somebody drops by.
Except now I can't. Every room is a mess. There's a paper towel I dropped two days ago on the living room floor. The bathroom was already overdue for cleaning. I've got dirty clothes thrown everywhere. There's cracker crumbs by my bed, in my bed, next to the counch, on the couch, and in the couch. Plus the sink is full of dirty dishes. Which mostly belong to the cats because I've been on an all-cracker diet. Which would be fine except fish residue smells after a few days. Badly.
Tonight I finally couldn't take it any more and decided to load the dishwasher as carefully as possible. Only the top rack so I don't have to bend over too far. The silverware I put in the rack on the dishwasher door instead of in the bottom rack like I usually do because it seems they would get cleaner there. I only managed to get the rack on one of the two pegs, but close enough.
Everything was going fine.
Until I bent over to get a soap pellet from the bottom shelf of the cupboard without thinking.
There goes my pill-free day.
So now I'm back on the couch waiting for the muscle relaxer to kick in so I can make my way up the stairs to bed.
In all honesty, I thought climbing in and out of my car would be my downfall, not cat dishes.
My days of running out and upgrading to Apple's latest and greatest are apparently over.
Because I've never been so overwhelmingly meh about a keynote that I can remember.
iPhone Pro Max 17
It's not that I wouldn't love to upgrade my 16 Pro Max to the latest model... I've always upgraded because of the cameras, and the improvements there are very nice indeed. 48MP cameras across the board on the rear, allowing for even more amazing "deep fusion" photos. A longer zoom. A 56% bigger sensor. Better low-light performance. Yes to all of that. And if I were still traveling regularly, I'd probably jump at it. But I'm not. I mostly take photos of my cats, and I can do that just fine with what I've got now. Everything else that's new doesn't mean much to me. My existing battery life, CPU speed, screen, enclosure, and the rest are already more than I already utilize. And what Apple "Intelligence" features I got in the year since they were supposed to be included on the 16 Pro don't impress me at all. I never use them because they're crap. I do like the orange color, having been dying for a Pro model that isn't drab and boring like we always used to get.
iPhone Air
I guess if all you wanted was a super thin and light iPhone, this is the model for you. But I want a phone for the camera, which is to say that this is not the phone for me.
iPhone 17
I guess if all you wanted was a less expensive iPhone Pro, this is the model for you. But I want a phone for the camera, which is to say that this is not the phone for me.
Apple Watch Ultra 3
Even if the size wasn't total overkill for me, the feature set would be. I'd make an exception if I were into the activities that the watch was designed for, but I'm just... not.
AirPods Pro 3
Even though these are the newest AirPods, you'd be forgiven for thinking they weren't given how there's AirPods 4 out there already. Regardless, Apple seems to be basing the price on how good the noise cancelation is. None is $129. Active is $179. World's Best Active is $249 (with Live Translation tossed in). I think the AirPods I own are the original Pro models, and they are still everything I need. Except the battery life is tanking, making them soon-to-be-unuseable. Which I'm sure is exactly what Apple is counting on... built in time bomb so you have to purchase new ones. Just like my Beats that died. At this point I think I'd rather go back to corded.
And so... guess I'm saving my money this time.
Even though it means I'm losing my Certified Apple Whore™ cred.
When you're having to lay on a heating pad from the time you get back from work to the time you wake up because you don't want to have to dig into the muscle relaxer pills for your back, you end up watching a lot of television.
Or, as in my case, YouTube videos.
Here's what occupied my time laying around last night...
First of all, this video right here is everything I love about YouTube. Clever, funny people doing clever, funny things. I've seen Isaac Carlton videos before (and probably shared them), but this one is a great example of what he does so well...
Next up... As much as I loved the original The Matrix, I loathed the sequels. They were outright shitty excuses for stories because they were so far up their asses trying to be esoteric and cerebral and "smart" between the action that they forgot to be entertaining (then we got The Matrix Resurrections, which was somehow even worse). But every once in a while I run across a sequence from the sequels that almost makes me want to watch them again. The highway chase from Reloaded being at the top of the list. Sure, some of the effects are badly dated (the Agent jumping on cars is hilariously bad), but it doesn't change what a cool action sequence it was. Especially for the day. It's just such a shame that it was sandwiched between such shit...
And lastly (because I've got stuff I need to get to, not because I only watched three videos)... I honestly do not understand how Josh Johnson can be this brilliant every time. He never seems to run out of material. Most comics would recycle the same routines over and over and over. With Josh he's just on to the next hilarious bit...
And there you have it. Hope you didn't fall into and Isaac Carlton or The Matrix or Josh Johnson rabbit hole from this post.
But there are certainly worse ways to spend your time.
Atom Entries Feed Comments Feed
